


Smoke and Mirrors

by LaCidiana



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Gen, Psychological Drama, Sylar!Nathan
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-14
Updated: 2011-08-14
Packaged: 2017-10-22 14:49:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,269
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/239225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LaCidiana/pseuds/LaCidiana
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>None of him fits together.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Smoke and Mirrors

**Author's Note:**

> Sylar!Nathan fic; quasi-tag to 4x06: Tabula Rasa. Originally written/posted October 2009. Warnings/pairings include some minor Sylar/Lydia with some non-graphic sex, peripheral to the main story. Thanks for reading!

Nathan Petrelli can't shake the feeling that he's walking through a dream.

An "out-of-body experience" is the best comparison he can make when he tries to put it into words. It's not a constant sensation, but sometimes as he's waking up or falling asleep, he'll feel a split second of something he can't explain, a kind of disconnect between his mind and his nerves that freezes him cold. In those moments, he's not sure if his body will move if he tells it to. In those moments, he feels trapped in himself, like an insect on a pin.

But Nathan's gone through a lot of weird things by now and this doesn't even make the top ten. In fact, he thinks to himself as he waves hello to his secretary, his life's been so unimaginably bizarre that he's starting to wonder if he even lived it in the first place. When he goes a step further and wonders if it's even his life at all, it jerks him aware enough that he starts trying to justify the thought. He's been a jackass, he thinks as his writer goes over next week's speech, and he wants to make it up to everyone. That's probably it.

When he crosses the street later that day to meet his mother for sushi, he realizes he's not afraid of being hit.

When he finds his coffee cup two feet closer than it should be, he realizes something is very wrong.

\---

Gabriel Gray can't shake the feeling that he's living someone's nightmare.

At first, he thinks the nightmare is his own. He thinks, when he's sitting in a cold room with his hands cuffed to a table, that nothing could be worse than this even though he has nothing to compare it to. But now that he's sitting in the off-beat warmth of a carnival wagon and his hands are free to do what they want, he still feels like a prisoner. He looks in the mirror and instead of familiarity, he feels loss. He feels anger. He feels like something has been taken from him, though he doesn't know what it is.

As he wakes up the next morning, he feels a split second of disconnect between his mind and his nerves. He feels the same thing when the carnival man asks his name.

 _Nathan_ , he says, and though it feels wrong on his tongue, it sounds right to his ears. He feels like there are other names attached to it, and faces, though he can't see any of them. He feels like he's far from home, like he crash-landed on an alien planet and now he can't get back.

When he meets Lydia and she smiles, he thinks that maybe he likes blondes.

When he rubs the empty space above one of his knuckles, he thinks that maybe something is missing.

\---

Something is happening to Nathan Petrelli.

It's scaring him. It's scaring him a hell of a lot, and suddenly all the lofty self-reflection of the past two days is rising as a panic in his chest. He looks in the mirror and though he sees his own face, he feels like it doesn't belong to him. He's in a dream again, where he's moving in someone else's skin even though he's acting as himself. He knows things, but he can't grasp them. He feels like a ghost.

He stands in his high-rise apartment, staring out the window and wondering if flying will clear his mind. Behind him, knick-knacks that should be on the shelves lie in a disarray on the coffee table. Some of them are broken from hitting the ground; others have scorch marks coming in one end and out the other. He knows, with razor clarity, how he came to own each one.

One thing is still left on the mantelpiece, standing out like a red sore against the solid grey of the wall. Monty got it for him on some field trip to Jersey: a tacky tourist snowglobe, usually hidden behind some books. Though he knows he should test it like all the rest, he feels like he's saving it for something important.

For some reason, that thought makes him sit down. It makes him bring a hand to his face.

\---

Something is growing in Gabriel Gray.

It starts slowly, like water heating over an open fire. He feels a desire for Lydia in the fifteen minutes he knows her; he feels like he's walked here with her before, past old cars and dirty trailers, that he's watched her long hair flow as they laughed and ran to the backseat of a red BMW. He feels like he was young then and he isn't now, though the ease with which he picks up shovels from a wheelbarrow makes him wonder if that's true.

He stops wondering when he sees the knives. He stops wondering when he flings them back, when he shoves the fast man into concrete and makes him ashamed for thinking he could take him. He likes this. He likes knowing he's better than the person in front of him, that he could destroy him if he wanted.

He lets out a breath. His head is spinning. He follows Samuel in a stupor, babbling about muscle memory because despite his regained self-awareness, he can't shake the feeling of satisfaction, as natural in him as his lungs or his heart. All of him, he realizes, likes power.

Jets fly overhead. He forgets everything else.

\---

Nathan Petrelli thinks he's watched someone die.

Or maybe he didn't. Maybe the whole baseball cap thing was some feat of his imagination, but he finds that hard to believe after the shelf-clearing and the lightswitch-flipping and the fact that he can power his toaster without the plug. He also finds, as he does these things, that his apartment begins to feel uncomfortable. Foreign. He begins to feel disconnected even when he's awake, begins to feel like he's floating even though he's sitting down. But it's not floating. He knows, better than anyone else, what floating feels like, and this isn't it.

On the third voice message and the seventh missed call, he decides to find Peter himself. Peter will know what's going on, he tells himself; Peter will give him some advice. He doesn't know if he wants to admit that there's something more to it than that.

He grabs a jacket, avoiding the mirror as he shrugs it on. He already knows that he looks like a wreck: he didn't go into the office today and he hasn't been getting much sleep. He keeps dreaming of something he can't remember, something from which he wakes up either choking or grinning.

His hand clenches around his keys.

Flying to New York _does_ clear his mind, clears it so much that it's only when he closes his eyes in the hospital elevator that he realizes the woman standing next to him has a watch two minutes too fast. When the doors open with a ding, he wonders dully if machines were always this loud, and when he walks out, he feels for two full steps like he's not the one moving his legs.

That sensation disappears the instant he recognizes those doofy bangs. He calls his name, makes some big stink, but he finds himself oblivious to Peter's excuses as he pulls him into a hug.

His brother is the only thing he's held in the past two days that has made him feel like himself.

\---

Gabriel Gray knows he's watched people die.

He doesn't want to believe it, but he can't deny it either, not even with wet eyes or the taste of bile fresh on his tongue. He saw the images, but more than that, he _knows_ them; he feels their presence in the tips of his fingers and on the palms of his hands. They're his actions and his memories and no matter what line Samuel tries to feed him, it doesn't make him any less of a monster.

All of him, he realizes, thinks he's a monster.

And now something is stirring in him, the same 'something' that launched the knives from his shovel and sent the detective flying through a glass wall. That same detective is here, Samuel says, and before he knows it, Gabriel is heading back into the House of Mirrors – just to talk.

Just to talk.

But the detective doesn't want to talk, and as his fear fades, Gabriel realizes he doesn't either. As he walks forward, as he sees the man shake in terror, he starts thinking of ways he could cut him up. He starts thinking about how this man isn't special, how it wouldn't be a loss to the species at all.

He fixes his eyes on his forehead.

_This isn't me._

The feeling rushes through his body like a poison. This isn't right. This isn't right, but more than that, this isn't _him_ , and he _knows_ it, even if the rest of him is crying with need, clawing at him in desperation. He shoves it back, shuddering as it releases him like the jaws of a crocodile, and he feels cold and hazy, like he can barely walk. Like he's barely tethered to whatever it is that's holding him together.

He watches numbly as Edgar slices the man less cruelly than he'd envisioned, looks on as the blood pools in a familiar shape on the ground. He's realizing, slowly, just how broken he is, and when he sees Samuel and the others outside, he knows he has nowhere else to go.

He lets Samuel take him into his arms. He finds his own face against his shoulder as his fingers clutch his back.

Something about it comforts him.

\---

Nathan Petrelli is feeling much worse.

If he had any illusion that getting to the bottom of this Kelly mess would help him, it's gone now. Instead, he keeps staring at the liquor bottles lining the wall behind the bar, wondering if he could stop himself after one glass and knowing that he wouldn't. He wonders if it would matter, anyway: the past couple of months, he's been insanely good at holding his liquor. Like Claire.

His mind stops there. For some reason, he's been running up against walls whenever she appears in his thoughts, like something is trying to protect him. Or her. He can't tell which and he feels like he doesn't want to know.

His thoughts are interrupted when his mother sits down beside him. He's always been able to tell her moods, but when she starts feigning ignorance, there's no question: she's lying. He doesn't know how, but he's sure of it.

It's only after she leaves, after she's told him about memory-wiping and the cover-up and left him wincing from her touch, that he realizes she didn't question how he dug this all up in the first place. As he walks to his car, that fact seems to pierce him deeper and deeper, and as he drives back to Milly's, he begins remembering things he'd forgotten in the onslaught of powers and alien emotions. He recalls her pulling him away from his office clock, talking him up at Koji Sushi, bringing him a box of old belongings and _telling_ him to pick one up.

Jesus Christ. She knows something, and worse, he can't even think it over right now. The only thing on his mind is Kelly and how it was all his fault, even if he told his mother exactly the opposite.

Things don't go well at Milly's. He doesn't know what he expected, but it couldn't have been this, because he spends the rest of the day walking, and flying, and driving, like he's not sure if he has anywhere to go. He's avoiding his apartment and its schizophrenic disarray; he's avoiding his mother and her infinite deception; he's avoiding his guilt as he sits on hold with the police and hangs up anyway.

He avoids the rearview mirror as he steps out into the garage. He turns to lock the car–

\---

Gabriel Gray is feeling a little better.

It's like he let out a heaving breath when he came out of that water, like a line was drawn between everything he was _then_ and everything he is _now_. He finds himself at ease with these people who are so much like him, who eat with him and speak to him as equals.

But most of all, he finds himself at ease with Lydia. She seems to understand him in a way he can't fully explain, and when she asks him to her trailer, he follows.

Her room is warm and her bed is warmer. They make love, and though he doesn't think it's his first time or even his best, it had might as well be. All that matters in these moments is that he belongs – somewhere and to someone. In these moments, he doesn't have room to think about his past as a killer or the memories that he's told aren't his own. It's all movement and climax and release – and when he falls onto her, into her, his mind lies still in the comfortable haze. He doesn't even notice when he falls asleep with her hand on his chest.

He dreams of landing on the floor of a hotel room. He dreams of slitting someone's throat.

He wakes up gasping. He breathes and stares at the trailer's wood-paneled ceiling, feeling a rupture inside him, so vast and so profound that he doesn't know if he can bridge it. He isn't where he's supposed to be – this isn't where any of him is supposed to be. None of him fits together: his cogs and springs are welded by force, and they grind painfully against each other with each second that ticks by. He doesn't know how long he can last. He's breaking. Always breaking.

Gabriel feels a voice against his ear. He shoots up on one elbow and looks to see Lydia watching him with wide-awake eyes. Half of him wants to crack a joke. Half of him wants to slap her.

But Gabriel has learned not to trust anything he wants, so instead he shakes his head and turns to pull his legs over the side of the bed. He sits, his bare back bent over, his eyes closed, before he finally stands up and starts gathering his clothes.

He needs some fresh air. Needs to walk.

He's buttoning up his shirt when he hears Lydia behind him, her voice gentle. _I know you're confused_ , she says, _but you're here now, with us. You can be whoever you want._

Gabriel can tell her concern is sincere, but he's not sure about her words. He feels like all of him is used to people lying, and when he turns, smiles, and says he'll be fine, he realizes he's a master at it.

*

He walks away from the carnival camp, past booths and rides that stand dark and empty in the dead of night. The worn facades of clown faces and bulb-dotted letters are visible only as monochrome shapes, each one evoking some emotion whose origin he doesn't know, some memory whose images cut deeper than the last. He remembers going to a carnival, once, when he was eighteen, holding someone's small hand–

He shuts his eyes. _Not me_ , he tells himself, but when he remembers the House of Mirrors, he wonders if he even cares. He wonders if he wants the deep-buried truths at all, and then he remembers the man in his dream: stumbling, convulsing, choking on flesh, drowning in blood, staring with wide eyes at nothing.

The memory makes his back hit a wall. It makes him bring a hand to his face.

And then he hears it.

" _Sylar._ "

His eyes snap open and his body straightens smoothly, like it's second nature, like he's used to being ambushed and acting like it's nothing. Someone is standing in the shadow of the ticket office and Gabriel can't see who it is.

It doesn't matter.

His hand shoots up and he throws the man back, but before his side can connect with the ground, he's gone. Gabriel stares, then whirls around to see the man next to a cotton candy stand. How the–

"Where is he?"

His voice is deathly cold. Violent.

"I don't–" Gabriel starts, but before he can finish, the man has disappeared again. There's a pause, and then Gabriel jerks as he feels fingers digging into his shoulder. Before he can react, his body hits the ground so hard that it knocks the wind out of him.

"Why won't you stay dead, you son of a _bitch_ " is all that he hears before he's thrown again, this time against the aluminum wall. It dents and creaks and falls over with him on it. He wheezes, trying vainly to push himself up with his hands. He hears footsteps behind him.

"So what is this, huh? _Revenge?_ Announcing you're back with some big _hint?_ "

Gabriel is hurting, but more than that, he's _frustrated_. A familiar rage is building in him, and as he turns, still sitting, to look at the man, he finds himself gathering lightning in his hand.

"You've got the wrong guy," he says slowly, deliberately. He doesn't bother to clarify. In fact, he's smirking.

"Don't play games with me," says the man, and his voice rises in volume. There's another quality to it now. "I saw his apartment – all your little clues. _Where the hell is he?_ "

"Who?" Gabriel asks. His voice is calm and he's ready with his shot. His hand whips out from behind him–

" _Nathan_."

The bolt misses by ten feet, hits the candy stand and blows it to pieces. Gabriel is frozen, caught on the edge of a thought. He's no longer smirking. He's no longer doing anything at all.

The figure draws nearer. Gabriel finds his eyes fixed on him even as he's hurled backwards again, even as he hears whistling past his ears, even as his stomach lurches and he stops inches away from a concrete pillar.

He hangs in the air, suspended for two long seconds before he falls to the ground.

He smells dirt and takes in a breath–

The man lets out a yell, broken and incoherent. Gabriel hears him running toward him, feels him grab him up by his collar, feels each and every blow as he hits him again, and again, and again.

" _You son of a bitch!_ " he hears through the pounding in his ears. "YOU SON OF A _BITCH!_ "

Gabriel's head hits the concrete with a sickening crunch. He feels the man's hands on his neck–

He remembers dying. He remembers dying, he realizes as he heaves and chokes: he remembers stumbling, convulsing, choking on flesh, drowning in blood, staring with wide eyes at a monster.

He remembers the monster.

\---

Nathan Petrelli remembers dying.

He remembers other things too, like laughing, and lying, and loving; he remembers his life and he remembers who took it away. Nathan Petrelli remembers, and in an instant of coherence, Gabriel Gray knows what he has to do. He knows what he has to give.

\---

Peter Petrelli wakes up on the ground.

He doesn't know how he got there, but he knows from the blood on his hands that he was in the middle of something bad. Thoughts like _Sylar_ and _Nathan_ and _god, please, no_ bring him back to his senses, and he's about to stand up when he feels a hand on his shoulder, hears a hoarse whisper behind him.

"Pete?"


End file.
